Violet Clouds

 To start this review I have an announcement, Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl is one of my go-to comfort reads. When I feel massively overwhelmed by things I love running to hang out with Cath as she travails her first year of University.  Describing 'Carry On' in this context is a bit of a twisty tale: in 'Fangirl' Cather is a fan of a series of books about Simon Snow, particularly championing the shipping of Simon with his nemesis, Baz. The Snow series is set in an English boarding school of magic and there are vampires and a mysterious threat that is leaching the world of magic. The idea of the book obviously has some basis on a certain other magic boarding school series but Watford School of Magicks isn't Hogwarts. The twisty bit is that 'Carry On' isn't a Gemma T. Leslie (Rowell's fiction author of the Snow Series) novel, it isn't Cath's fanfic. It's Rainbow Rowell's fanfic of a world she created which makes it quite the fas...

There are some books that you sit down to read with great anticipation, be it for the author or the subject but the very best ones are the ones that come as a recommendation from a reader-friend. The book pressed into your hands with a look that says 'you need to read this'. This is one such book. Although this is the second book in the series I was assured that I could read this one and then scoot back to the first one, which I absolutely will be doing. The plot follows a boy, Will Stanton, on his eleventh birthday. The world opens up and changes and he faces an ancient challenge, a clash of good and evil. The language was lovely, the settings were vivid and the characters interesting. I look forward to returning to the world Susan Cooper created with the other books in the series. This is a book aimed at older children or young adults.

Brief background: A few months ago I started changing my approach to stuff. As in I have accumulated a lot of things up until this point in my life and have not let go of many of them. This is something I am now working to change. I picked this book up as I am curious about this issue. Wallman talks raises some interesting points during this book but throughout the process of reading it I felt uneasy in a way that comes with a side of greasy salesman. Wallman starts by looking at the issue of what he calls 'stuffocation', the acquiring to stuff when in search of happiness and ending up just with things. There is some interesting research done and the points are valid and important.It also provided an interesting history of consumerism and how change can be tracked. Wallman then looks at three solutions to this problem that people have embrace. Minimalism, Simple Living and Medium Chill are each examined and dismissed for what he terms experientialism.  It looks quite shall...